DIALOGUE: Should Congress Investigate the 'October Surprise'?; An Official Inquiry Might Crack the Case

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Will we ever know what happened during the so-called October surprise in the 1980 Presidential elections? Or is this story fated to become a permanent mystery? Congress may soon be in a position to answer that question.

Last August, House and Senate leaders announced their intention to investigate charges that members of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 met secretly with Iranians to manipulate the timing of the release of the 52 U.S. hostages held in Iran. President Bush and former President Ronald Reagan said they would welcome a bipartisan investigation.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the inquiry. The Republicans raised objection after objection, keeping authorization bills tied up in committee until the last moments of the 1991 Congressional session. In the Senate, a majority favored an investigation, but a bill died when the necessary 60 votes could not be found to overcome the threat of a Republican filibuster. In the House, the vote on a similar resolution was postponed under heavy Republican pressure in the chaos of the final marathon session.

Despite the stalling, prospects for a full-scale investigation are promising. Representative Lee Hamilton, Democrat of Indiana, is gearing up for an inquiry in anticipation of an authorizing vote soon after Congress reconvenes this month. The Senate is proceeding even without a floor vote. Senator Terry Sanford, a Democrat, and Senator Jim Jeffords, a Republican, of the Foreign Relations Committee have named Reid Weingarten, a political independent, as special counsel.

Where was William Casey? Mr. Casey, who ran the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign, proved to be a phantom campaign manager. An exhaustive compilation of his movements in 1980 by Robert Ross and Bob Parry of the PBS program "Frontline" leaves Mr. Casey unaccounted for about half the time between the nomination and election, including the key dates when he is alleged is have met with Iranian representatives.

Archivists at the Reagan library, which has more than one million pages of campaign records, reported that "no documents were found relating to William Casey's schedule or his overseas travel." Mr. Casey's secretary claimed to have no record of his late July trip to a conference in London, which may have included a side trip to Madrid to meet a senior Iranian. It seems impossible that a busy man would keep no phone logs, calendars or appointment books that would indicate where he was on key dates. Is there no one who saw him or spoke to him on those dates? Are there no bills, receipts, memos? A committee of Congress, with subpoena power, should be able to locate these records or ascertain if they have been destroyed.

What were the Hashemi brothers doing in this period? Jamshid Hashemi says he and his brother Cyrus, while cooperating with the Carter Administration on the hostage crisis, were also helping Mr. Casey to make contact with Iran. Cyrus Hashemi, by coincidence, was under F.B.I. surveillance for more than five months, beginning in early September 1980. Some F.B.I. memos have recently been released under the Freedom of Information Act, but more than half the documents were withheld, and the others are so heavily edited it is impossible to tell who was speaking to whom or what was being discussed.

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A Congressional committee, with appropriate security clearances, would be able to examine the original texts, together with classified files in the State Department, C.I.A., F.B.I. and Customs Service. This should help determine if Jamshid Hashemi has been telling the truth about his brother's activities.

Who in the Government authorized clandestine arms shipments to Iran, and why? In the past several years, information has emerged about substantial arms sales to Iran immediately after Mr. Reagan was inaugurated. Most shipments were apparently funneled through Israel and Israeli middlemen, but the sales were sanctioned by the Reagan Administration and apparently drew on U.S. stocks. Seymour Hersh, in an investigation for The New York Times, has estimated this illicit trade at $2 billion a year.

The question is, why would anyone in the first days of the Reagan Administration risk breaking U.S. law to ship weapons to Iran? That, of course, happened six years later in the Iran-contra affair. But why in 1981, just after the hostages had been freed?

Are the sources telling the truth? Many sources for the October surprise story are unconventional: intelligence operatives, arms salesmen, entrepreneurs on the margins of the law. Many cannot be taken at their word. Everything they say must be corroborated. (The same rule applies to many "respectable" individuals who may have been involved.)

A Congressional committee with subpoena power would be able to test the sources' veracity, under oath. It could also interview people who have thus far refused to talk.

Will the investigation of these questions produce a definitive answer? It is impossible to predict the outcome of a complex investigation, but the possibility of a conclusive finding seems promising. Journalists and researchers have uncovered extensive circumstantial evidence of a hostage deal in the 1980 campaign. The accusations cannot be buried. If the Reagan-Bush campaign did not initiate illicit contacts with Iran, that should be established. If it did, the American people have a right to know the truth. The best hope of a conclusive answer lies with the new Congress.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 15, 1992, on Page A00021 of the National edition with the headline: DIALOGUE: Should Congress Investigate the 'October Surprise'?; An Official Inquiry Might Crack the Case. Today's Paper|Subscribe